Pinter at the Hangar

It is welcome refreshment when a summer theater season, often slavishly yoked to presenting upbeat, sing-along musicals or raucous, door-slamming comedies, spices the mix a bit with serious, inventive drama. Hangar Theatre's current offering does just that with its nicely-stylized presentation of Harold Pinter's "Betrayal".

The story is simple. Robert (Jonathan C. Kaplan) and Emma (Rosie Benton) are married. Robert and Jerry (John Wernke) are best friends. Emma and Jerry have been carrying on a long-term affair. Emma and Jerry know that Robert knows about the affair. Robert and Jerry continue to play squash and lunch together.

The telling of the story, however, isn't so simple.

In what might be termed "Pinteresque" fashion, the playwright reveals the deep complications of the situation through a series of short, almost snapshot-like scenes that reveal by "dechronologizing" the events. That is, the first scene is the end of the affair; the last scene, the beginning. It's as if, in some metaphorical fashion, Pinter is stripping away, scene by scene, the extraneous, in order to lay bare the essence.

Known for his clipped, "stiff upper lip", British dialogue, Pinter also accompanies the sparseness with unusual, but characteristic, spates of silence. It's as if, like the revelations through reverse chronology, more is revealed through silence than through the rather perfunctory dialogue. The awkward pauses become more auditory than the actual written dialogue.

The three actors are quite adept in their necessary control of both physical movement and the clipped cadence of their words.This is purposefully juxtaposed to the more normal movements and speech patterns of two waiters (Marcin Pawlikiewicz and Robert J. De Luca).

The contemporary scenic design by Pete Rush reflects the overall sparseness of the work with a single set of three doorways and two staircases for entrances and exits. The initial scene is particularly effective as, one by one, the doorways are lighted with each of the three characters revealed in photo-like arrest before action begins.